KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysian authorities suffered a setback Wednesday in their plan to send a 35-member team to drape Egypt's Great Pyramid at Giza with the flags of the world's 57 Muslim countries.

The chairman of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, the body responsible for the Giza site, said in Cairo that he would not allow it to be draped.

"This cannot take place," chairman Zahi Hawass said. "The pyramid cannot be draped by any person in this world. Nobody is allowed to do this."

Malaysia's Defense Minister Najib Razak announced the project during a ceremony Tuesday, when he presented a Malaysian flag to the team's leaders.

Najib said the expedition, which had been planned for May 18, is a "commendable effort," and comes in response to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's call to raise Malaysia's profile in the world.

The flag-draping event, sponsored by Malaysia's Youth and Sports Ministry and the Selangor state government, had been slated to be broadcast live on a Malaysian television channel.

But Hawass ruled out giving permission to the so-called Malaysian Peace Mission team for the project -- which would involve climbing the 4,600-year-old World Heritage site.

"Why should I allow them to drape it?" Hawass said. "If they want to make propaganda, let them do it somewhere else. They can do it in any other place in Cairo."

Hawass said he had rejected other requests to exploit the Great Pyramid in some way. He did not give details.

The Great Pyramid at Giza was built by the Pharaoh Khufu, or Cheops, with 3 million stone blocks weighing 2.5 tons each, without any cementing material. It is the height of a modern day 40-story building.

Malaysia's Star newspaper said the team wanted to drape the pyramid with the flags of the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which Malaysia currently chairs.

The Malaysian team had also hoped to visit several mosques and historical places in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the Star said.

Lets see - if they want to drap 'em over London Tower we would welcome them, and announce a day of interfaith celebration! And pay their expenses. And devote the BBC output for the day to a free concert 'Jihad in the Park' live from Hyde Park.....

It's a good thing that Malaysia has no other problems to worry about and its politicians have such mega amounts of free time that they can sit around dreaming up schemes to hang flags on faraway piles of stone. What a lucky country Malaysia is.

Hawass is in the process of building a new Cairo museum next to the pyramids and it will be able to show everything they have. Right now at the old museum they show about a quarter of what they have. He's done a great job for his country.

Funny thing is, the Talinanm ran a muslim nation. If the Great Pyramid was in Afghanistan, they would've blown it up.

How can some muslim sects embrace pre-muslim monuments and others can't?

Then again, muslim Egypt didn't really care about its antiquities before French archaeologists in Napoleon's train explained that it was all quite important. Up to then, the lcoals were using dessicated mummies for kindling, taking apart ancient sites to re-use the stone for new buildings, and looting every crypt they could access.

"Najib said the expedition, which had been planned for May 18, is a "commendable effort," and comes in response to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's call to raise Malaysia's profile in the world."

Maybe helping Pakistan and fellow Islamists recover from the earthquake would be a better road to high profile world recognition.

Great.......How about we anounce that a council of Americans from Free Republic is planning on draping Mecca in the flags of all the Pork Producing Nations around the world? Let's see how that one flies.

Well, I just checked with the demographics and marketing section and their statistics indicate the American Pork Council is bound to increase sales if we followed your lead. It appears there is a huge hiatus in sales for that region just begging for a newcomer to seize majority marketshare.

They have, it's just taking a long time for the process to complete itself.

The Great Pyramid was originally encased in a smooth outer casing of incredibly durable polished white limestone, whose blocks were fitted to amazing tolerances and joined by an equally amazing and strong cement (which we don't fully understand today). Also, the original entrance had been so carefully sealed that even its location had been lost. At the time when Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were battling over Egypt and Cleopatra, no one had been inside the Pyramid for thousands of years, or remembered where the entrance was.

As a result, for thousands of years the Great Pyramid had been effectively "air tight" and immune from anything more than superficial deterioration. The ancient Egyptians even had a saying: "Time conquers all, but Time fears the Pyramid."

All of this changed with the coming of Islam and the Arab conquest of Egypt. In 820 AD, the ruler of Cairo, Abdullah Al Mamun ordered his men to bore a tunnel into the pyramid to search for chambers and treasure. The opening of this passage allowed air and moisture to begin penetrating the pyramid.

Then, in 1356, following an earthquake that leveled Cairo, the Arabs stripped the pyramid of its casing of polished stones to rebuild mosques and fortresses in the city. This has exposed the softer building blocks underneath to weathering, and gave us the familiar "stair-step" sides to the pyramid which allow visitors to climb to the top. In ancient times the smooth, sharply-angled sides of the polished limestone casing were impossible to climb.

The bottom line is, the Great Pyramid will still endure for a long time, but thanks to the Arabs it is crumbling and deteriorating far more rapidly than it would ever have had its protective casing not been breached.

"Hawass said he had rejected other requests to exploit the Great Pyramid in some way. He did not give details."

He doesn't HAVE to give any details, the man is THE chairman of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities...Thank God. Zahi Hawass is a cool mofo. The man is a straight shooter and he doesn't care who you are, he'll tell it as it is. Back in 2003 he helped nail one of Egypts most powerful families, the Al-Sweisi, for smuggling hundreds of artefacts illegaly out of Egypt. Tarek Al-Sweisi was a high ranking senior official, now expelled, from the ruling National Democratic Party.

Hawass got his MA & Ph.D at the University of Pennsylvania. I've always enjoyed watching him talk about ancient Egypt on the National Geographic Channel. ;)

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